how can you say calves are one of the most used muscles in sprinting? They aren’t even heavily used when jumping! As kelly baggett put it: Try doing a vertical jump without bending your knees and just using your calf strength. how high did you get? 2-3 inches? So, do they play a role in sprinting? Yeah, i’d say about 5% of power output comes from the calves. thus, as charlie would also reiterate- sprint work and plyometrics are enough calf work.
But, some people still have shin splints etc, so I say, yeah, you’re calves are too weak to handle the pounding and intense sprint training-- so do some calf raises to strengthen them.